Taliban-style take over of Uzbekistan by Islamic Terrorists ?

Date Written : May 18, 2005
Date Modified : May 18, 2005

Taliban-style take over of Uzbekistan by Islamic Terrorists ?

As in Afghanistan, where the Taliban replaced the Soviet Army; the Taliban-like Islamic terrorists are up in arms against the present regime and want to form a Islamic state in Uzbekistan, that too just 13 years after its independence following the dissolution of the USSR. This rebellion started on Friday, the 13th, 2005.

After independent Uzbekistan came into existence in 1991, the authorities followed a liberal policy towards Islam. They permitted the re-opening of many mosques, which had been closed down by the Soviet Government before 1991, and the construction of new mosques in Andijan and the local Muslims to go on pilgrimage to their holy land in Saudi Arabia. There was a mushrooming of new mosques funded by Saudi money.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Islamic fundamentalism made its appearance in the region through Pakistani organisations such as the Tablighi Jamaat, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and through the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which came from the UK via Pakistan. This led to anti-Jewish feelings on the one side and anti-Slav (anti-Christian and anti-Western) feelings on the other. The Pakistani organisations spread the Wahabi ideology, which led to the CARs becoming a hotbed of jihadi extremist/terrorist activities in pursuit of the objective of an Islamic Caliphate.

But after the emergence of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 1995, the Uzbek government fearful of an Islamist revolt reversed this policy. But the damage was already done. The saudi money was already in Uzbek, to reach and preach every Muslim, that the Islamic way is the only way to live life. The Akramia group which is a "faction of Hizb ut-Tahrir" includes known members of the group banned across Central Asia and Russia, and their goal is to establish an Islamic caliphate.

The current uprising started with a jail break, but it seems that it was a preplanned uprising of Islamists. The focus of the jailbreak was 23 men charged with membership in a group allied with the outlawed radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which seeks to create a worldwide Islamic state and has been forced underground throughout most of Central Asia and Russia. Hizb-ut-Tahrir party, is accused of inspiring a series of terror attacks in the capital Tashkent and the central city of Bukhara last year that killed more than 50.

President Islam Karimov who is America's ally in the War on Terror, had waged an intense and relentless campaign against Islamists in Uzbekistan.

Since 2003, the HT had organized a series of demonstrations in Andijan to protest against the continued detention of their relatives by the local authorities. In February, 2005, it had been organizing protests against the detention and trial of 23 Muslim businessmen. It was these protests which have now turned into violent uprising, that too on a Friday, 13 May 2005.

The leader of a group of terrorists, Bakhtiyor Rakhimov, claiming to control the Uzbek border town of Korasuv said on 17 May 2005, that he and his supporters intend to build an Islamic state and they were ready to fight if government troops attempt to crush their revolt. It is to be noted that the uprising in Korasuv began Saturday, a day after government troops violently crushed an uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan. Did that happen spontaneously? Of course not, it was pre-planned. "All decisions will be taken by people at a mosque. There will be rule of Shariah law," Rakhimov said. "We will be building an Islamic state here in accordance with the Quran," Bakhtiyor Rakhimov told The Associated Press. Leaders like Rakhimov and Sheikh Abduvali Qori, are preaching Kuran, to more and more radicalize the already radical Muslims.

The present rebellion is trying to take Uzbekistan into a medieval Islamic Caliphate. World needs to decide whether they would tolerate a Taliban-style take over of Uzbekistan by Islamic Terrorists.